Anglo-Spanish War (1715-1722)

The Anglo-Spanish War (May 1715-October 1722) was an undeclared naval war between Great Britain and the Spanish Empire that took place in the Caribbean Sea. Owing to the rivalry of the Royal Navy and the Spanish Navy, the war was a naval contest between the two greatest colonial powers in the Caribbean, and at the time, the world. In the end, there was no result.

Background
In 1700, the Kingdom of France installed Duke Philip d'Anjou as the new King of Spain after the death of King Carlos II of Spain and the extinction of the Spanish branch of the House of Habsburg. The result of the election was the formation of opposition to the installation of the House of Bourbon over two neighboring countries, with an alliance of Great Britain, the United Provinces, and the Austrian Empire forming (they had support from smaller allies). The War of the Spanish Succession raged from 1701 to 1714, seeing military stalemate despite many victories by the Habsburg Alliance against the French and Spanish. In the Caribbean Sea, the British employed privateers such as Edward Kenway, Edward Teach, and Benjamin Hornigold to destroy Spanish warships and capture merchant shipping, letting them keep their spoils and not accusing them of being pirates. Letters of marque were the only obstacles to the gallows for them, and Britain was able to inflict severe defeats on the Spanish Navy through the efforts of their buccaneer allies and their own Royal Navy.

In 1713, the Treaty of Utrecht was signed, which was a separate peace between Great Britain and Spain; France later succumbed to the peace treaty a year later. Spain welcomed British merchants into their ports and trade resumed as usual, but the war of Spanish succession left a bitterness between the Spanish and British colonial administrations in the Caribbean. By May 1715, these hostilities escalated into armed clashes.

War
The British and Spanish navies were about equally-matched at the time of the war's beginning, as Spain had more fortresses, but they were weak and their navies were targeted by former British privateers (who now turned back to their lives of piracy). Many Spanish ships never returned to their home ports, to the fault of the pirates. The Royal Marines clashed with Spanish troops on Abaco Island and Santanillas, two islands in the Caribbean, while the Royal Navy and Spanish Navy fought in deadly battles overseas.

The war intensified in 1718 when the British began to feel the full effects of the Treaty of Utrecht, which allowed the privateers that had served them to continue independent piracy. Both fleets were attacked by the pirate lords Edward Teach ("Blackbeard"), Edward Kenway, Benjamin Hornigold, Jack Rackham, Charles Vane, and many others, and the British had to capture Nassau from the pirates after a short siege. The British and Spanish ships fought in massive naval battles off the Bahamas (mainly consisting of gunboat or schooner clashes, as the bigger ships lay to the south), off the southern coast of Jamaica (where the British ships leaving port at Kingston and Port Royal fought with Spanish ships from Mexico, New Granada, and Guatemala), and off the coasts of Haiti and in the middle of the Caribbean Sea. These battles were common, with British attacking Spanish on sight.

Eventually, the Spanish entered a real war with Britain in 1719 during the "War of the Quadruple Alliance", where Britain allied with France, the Dutch, and the Austrian Empire (later joined by Savoy) against the Spanish after King Felipe V of Spain (the Duc d'Anjou) refused to give up his claims to lands in Italy and the throne of France. A failed attack on Nassau that year led to the Spanish withdrawal from land warfare in the Bahamas, and they purely fought at sea. Edward Kenway ambushed Spanish and British forces while they fought each other on Santanillas and other small islands, hoping to gather loot that they were fighting over. Whenever he left ship to head to Mariguana Island, the thunder of cannons and the thumping of cannonballs could be heard and felt.

The war ended some time after October 1722, the last chapter of Edward Kenway's pirate career. A seemingly-never-ending month, October saw the pirates take over all of the British and Spanish island forts across the Caribbean and become a worse threat to both belligerents than each other. In the end, the two sides formed an alliance to seize control of the seas to fight against the pirates ofthe Caribbean, ending the so-called war.